Debates about same-sex marriage and gay adoptions always include the argument that a child has the right to both a father and a mother. If that is true, why is a child usually deprived of that right when heterosexual couples divorce?
It would seem that maintaining the father's love and authority would be crucial when a child's life is turned upside down by divorce. Yet, family courts routinely deprive children of one parent, usually the ... [full story]

Since before George W. Bush was president and when Paris and Hilton were names for a town in France and a hotel chain, I've met weekly in a book group. We gather at breakfast to tackle everything from the Dalai Lama to "The Life of Pi."
It's a vibrant, intelligent, socially responsible collection of women who in another generation could be described as the salt of the earth.
That is, until I raised a question ... [full story]

Are we ever to extricate U.S. forces from Iraq? Not until the generals give their OK.
So says President Bush, aka commander in chief. His every utterance on the subject has been to tell us that U.S. policy in the Mideast is not up to him, and certainly no business of Congress. Our brigades will head home only when "the generals on the ground" decide it's time.
From David Petraeus on down, of course, all ... [full story]

A new power grab over education now lurking in the corridors of Congress reminds me of a popular tune from the Harry James/Frank Sinatra era: "I've Heard That Song Before."
Section 3401, inserted by the Senate - but not the House - in the pending America COMPETES Act (S.761), would give us another costly and harmful expansion of the federal education bureaucracy.
Like many "comprehensive" bills in Congress these days, Section 3401 contains jargon that ... [full story]

WASHINGTON, Indiana - It's a long way from Washington, D.C., to Washington, Ind., where my father was born a century ago next January and where I am attending a Thomas family reunion. On the drive from Indianapolis, one passes towns that could fill a Norman Rockwell album. My favorite is named Freedom because, though the town has only a single flashing caution light, it displays many flags. If I don't slow down, I will miss ... [full story]

If you believe the Bush presidency is a failure, what then? Do you delight in whacking him like a piñata for the next 18 months with your only objective a Democratic blowout victory in the 2008 election? If that is your strategy, do you ask yourself what kind of country a Democratic president will inherit and whether he (or she) will have the ability to quickly turn things around after months of pummeling a weakened ... [full story]

Former Department of Health and Human services official signs on as a consultant with Deloitte Consulting LLP after questions are raised about federal government grants and abstinence-only sex education programs
Wade Horn It's difficult to know exactly what Wade Horn was thinking in the days prior to his resignation from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): Perhaps he didn't relish the thought of having to defend his pouring of millions of dollars in taxpayer ... [full story]

"One day the good Lord will take Fidel Castro away."
With these words, uttered in the presence of TV cameras at the Naval War College, President George W. Bush responded to queries about the newest revelation in a half century of troubled U.S. relations with Cuba.
He spoke what many will acknowledge as a simple truth. Yet some may wish the president had added, "Such matters are better left to the Lord than to the ... [full story]

Watching the third debate between the Democratic candidates for president on PBS at Howard University, I was struck by the juxtaposition of mostly white men and women discussing issues primarily related to people of color. It struck me vividly that if the GOP is ever to regain its lost ground with African-American voters, a good place to start would be to commit itself to debating the very same issues before a largely black audience at ... [full story]

Contrary to continuing media propaganda, the 2006 election and the killing of the Senate "comprehensive" immigration bill do NOT prove that anti-amnesty is a loser for Republicans. The Democrats who won in 2006 campaigned with Republican-rhetoric messages calling for border security, and they kept their promises in the decisive cloture vote on June 28.
Republican Senators voted "no" by a 3-to-1 majority (37 to 12), and they were conspicuously joined by three new Democratic senators ... [full story]

Just steps away from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall in Philadelphia, archaeologists recently unearthed remains of a secret passageway that President George Washington's slaves used to enter and exit from his presidential home in the late 1790s, when the city served as the nation's capital.
Not far from where the Declaration of Independence was signed nearly 230 years ago, there stands evidence of the hypocrisy that shrouded the burgeoning nation at its birth.
"As ... [full story]

Three bubbly little girls and a fun new Disney film.
Priceless?
Not exactly.
I stared down at the receipts. Tickets. Candy. Popcorn. Soda. Maybe the teenage clerk with the Clearasil complexion misunderstood me. I wanted to go to the movies, not buy the theater.
And now it's the summer blockbuster season. That means between pirates, ogres, superheroes, surfing penguins and a guy named Evan building an ark, chances are we'll be dying hard rather than ... [full story]

Every night around 11 o'clock my wife reluctantly relinquishes the remote control so that I can select the local newscast we will watch. The scene is familiar to millions of people for whom the TV remote can sometimes cause marital friction and spark a battle for the power to determine what others watch.On Tuesday, the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing to discuss whether there is too much violence on cable and satellite TV and ... [full story]